The caption reads, "Why did my parents abuse me?" Have you found the answer? I haven't. I have lived many lifetimes and I still can not answer this question. I don't mean reincarnation, I believe we all live different lives through out our years, we can look back at our past and wonder, "Who was that person?" I especially think this is true for those of us who have survived an abusive childhood. I could write about my abuse, I would try to clean it up, I wouldn't want to shock my readers, but, I'd have to be careful, that kind of writing might lead the reader to believe I have found the answer to, "why did my parents abuse me?" I could tell it as it happened, ugly, hateful, sad, but the reader might think me bitter. We have a story to tell, a story people are tired of reading about, tired of hearing about. Yes, in recent years, talk of child abuse has become socially acceptable. People have told their heart wrenching, soul cleansing stories, we have dried our tears as our hearts broke for them. But we haven't told our story, have we? So, here's one more story, my story.

I remember it was fall, I remember because I was raking leaves in piles and jumping in them, carefree, happy. I had no reason to be happy, I was a bad girl, I should be sad. I should be sorry for the things I did. Why was I acting like any other child, I had no right to. I was 5 years old.

My mother called me into the house, my sister who was less than 2 years older than me, at her side, she told me what my sister Janice had confessed to her, that my step father had been sexually abusing me, I was so scared, I just looked up at her slowing moving my head up and down in a yes motion. I loved my mother so much, she was a petite woman who could pass for a teenager herself. We had not always lived with her. My sister and I lived with my grandmother, but mom had brought us to live with her when she married James. My mother worked nights, not long after we came, James would slither into our bedroom, he would take either me or my sister, I can remember pretending to be asleep, praying he would take my sister tonight, sometimes he did, but the times he took me, he would carry me to his room and like a boa constrictor squeezes the life from his victim, this snake squeezed my innocence from me. I felt many emotions, fear, confusion, nausea. My snake would tell me if I ever told anyone he would kill me,

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